Adventures of the Mad Mages
by mr enthusiasm
Summary: In this alternate history, Shiroe meets a transfer student named Bones from America who also plays Elder Tales. With some persuasion, Bones convinces him to join his party of magic users on the North American Server. Which is how on the day of the apocalypse, Shiroe finds himself halfway around the world from most of the people he knows.
1. An American Apocalypse

**Disclaimer:**

I do not own the story of Log Horizon or any of its related properties

* * *

**General Warnings:**

Most of the characters in this story are adults. They sometimes use vulgar language and mention scary things like taxes and interacting with the opposite sex.

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**Author's Note: **

I appreciate anyone and everyone who takes the time to critique my work.

I tried very hard to NOT change any canon mechanic of Log Horizon that I didn't mean to change on purpose but the wiki is annoyingly sparse so don't get too mad if I messed something up. If anyone with more knowledge than I wanted to flesh it out a bit that would be awesome.

If I had a nickel for every time I thought 'Elder Scrolls' and meant 'Elder Tales' I could at least buy lunch.

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**An American Apocalypse**

Shiroe was not in a good way. He'd stumbled through the middle of town barely keeping it together. It made no sense. One minute he was logged onto Elder Scrolls waiting for the update to drop, the next he'd woken up here. Not playing his character, but actually being as him. Shiroe's too long legs tripped over themselves and he ended up sprawled in the dirt with a thud. He lay there panting for awhile.

Well, he had two choices. He could freak out and run around panicking. Having reality suddenly changed on you seemed like a valid reason to do just that. Or he could get decide to get himself together. Shiroe took a couple of deep breaths, stood up, and dusted himself off. Finally, he really took a good look at what was around him.

Across the square was the cathedral, next to it the guild headquarters. Looking farther down the way he could see the market section with different brightly colored vendor stalls. Even the giant fountain in the center of the square was right where it was supposed to be. This was definitely the adventurer city of Dixie. Shiroe's eyes narrowed. Not only was he suddenly thrust into a game, but he was halfway around the world from his familiar stomping grounds. Damn you Bones.

Bones was a transfer student in many of the same engineering classes as Shiroe. He was an American, but was spending the year studying in Japan. Despite usually being shy, Shiroe and him had managed to hit it off. One of the bigger reasons for this was them realizing both of them spent a ridiculous number of hours in the world of Elder Scrolls. It hadn't taken Bones long to realize Shiroe was sort of wandering through the game at the time. He'd pick up a quest here, help a person out there, but really he just seemed to be playing out of habit.

So Bones had started nagging Shiroe to join him and his friends on the North American server. It was the first server to go online in the world of Elder Tales so many of the most classic raids and missions could be found there. These were adventures that had been beaten so long ago that it was common knowledge exactly what combination of classes and skill sets were needed to beat them. Having played enough MMOs to find the traditional style a bit stale, Bones and his friends had the bright idea to try and complete these quests with only magic users, because why not. No warrior classes allowed which meant no proper tanks, and no weapons classes which meant no proper vanguard. Shiroe had been skeptical.

"And why would you do this?" Shiroe had asked.

"Because if you're going to play a fantasy MMO why in god's name would you ever do something as mundane as picking up a sword?" responded Bones. "And because it's hard and I like to keep things interesting."

"And what makes you think I could help?" said Shiroe.

Bones gave him an incredulous look.

"Dude, I've hung out with you in Akihabara. I've met your friends. You're practically a legend mister villain in glasses," said Bones said with a smirk. "Besides, you're already thinking about how to use a summoner's golem to make up for the lack of tank and probably a dozen other strategies because you're just that kinda guy."

Shiroe became uncomfortably aware of the part of his brain already figuring out how to keep the sorcerer mobile enough to not get killed while still keeping up their dps. He gave Bones a pained look.

"I know we're friends, Bones. But, there is a reason I don't belong to any guilds. I don't like feeling used."

Bones brushed him off.

"Pshhh, trust me. If they wanted to be carried my friends wouldn't join up for quests like this. They're all higher level, all a little bored with doing things the normal way. They know what they're doing. Also, you've heard the rumors about a new update. You never know what old content will get messed with when that happens. It might be our last chance to do some of these old adventures. And to top it all off we'll just be partying up. No guild membership, no obligations, no hard feelings if you decide it's not your thing. Come on, It'll be fun."

In the end Shiroe had relented. Debauchery tea party was over, it had been for awhile. It was time for some new adventures, he'd thought. Plus a different server meant he would be a lot less well known and likely to get bullied into helping people he didn't want to. Also it was hard to say no to Bones. He was stereotypically American, which meant being loud and overly enthusiastic about everything. But it also made him quite charismatic. He was just fun to be around.

However, physically manifesting in Dixie had not been part of the deal. Looking at how the people around him were acting indicated they thought much the same.

Something was off though. A few people were acting even more strangely than expected. They were sitting on the ground staring intently and moving there fingers as if manipulating something. The thought came crashing through Shiroe's head, the menu! He focused his gaze and tentatively tapped the air in front of him.

And there it was, the menu just as he remembered it. His stats, inventory, and friend list were all there. Hell, even the in game volume control was there. He adjusted the slider just to see what would happen. The noise of everyone around him faded to practically nothing. Weird.

He quickly navigated to the log out button and stabbed at it. A dull beep and red failure symbol popped up. Of course, he thought, nothing that simple. But his friends list was there. Another thought occurred to him. If this was the game he could simple call anyone on his friends list with voice chat. Well, anyone on this server anyway. Just as he got to Bones' name a ringing started in his head that nearly made him jump out of his skin. The interface in front of him changed showing an incoming call. It was Bones.

"Uhhhh, hello?" said Shiroe.

"Uh, hey Shiroe. Still on for meeting at the Silver Spur in ten or so?" asked Bones.

"Yep," said Shiroe.

"And, uhh. This may may sound silly, but are you sitting in front of your computer like normal?" said Bones.

"Nope, definitely inside the game," said Shiroe.

"Oh," said Bones. "Ok. Not just me then. That's good, I think?"

"If you say so," said Shiroe.

Shiroe heard a stifled laugh on the other end, then another. Pretty soon Bones had busted out laughing and Shiroe couldn't help but join him. It felt good to acknowledge the ridiculousness of the situation with someone else.

"Alright, well. Glad to hear I'm not the only insane person," said Bones. "Anyway, I'm going to try and get a hold of everybody else. They should have all been online since the update was coming. Silver Spur tavern. Ten minutes. Be there. Then maybe we can figure out what the hell is going on."

Jordan looked over towards the entrance of the tavern when he heard the door swing open. A short female nervously stepped into the noisy room. Unlike most of the adventurers in the room she wasn't clad in armor or flowing robes. Instead, her tight, sleeveless shirt and simple pants revealed tattoos coving most of her dark skin marking her as a member of the race of ritual. One of the rarer races in Elder Tales, it came with boosted magical stats but annoyingly low health points. As she looked around the room her numerous rings, bracelets, and earrings twinkled in the torchlight. At each step the bells tied into her short purple hair and around her ankles gave off faint jingles. Her eyes met Jordan's.

Jordan slapped a hand over his mouth before he burst out laughing. It didn't help.

"Bwahahaha. Oh my god you're stuck like that aren't you?" he said.

"Come on man, this is weird enough as it is," said Arryn. She walked the rest of the way across the tavern to sit down at the bar next to her friend.

"Which part is worse, the fact that you're the wrong gender or that you're like two feet tall?" said Jordan.

"I'm nearly five feet thank you very much," said Arryn. "But yeah, definitely the short thing. I'm not used to having to look up at everybody. I don't suppose I can actually order a beer here, can I?"

"Call it an ale, but yeah, totally allowed. And really?" said Jordan. "The being a girl part isn't odd?"

"Beer first, talk second. Hey Barman!" she yelled over to the person of the land working the bar. He acknowledged her and indicated it would be a second. She turned back to Jordan.

"Seriously, your body's your body. Took me a bit to get used to the walking part but you forget about the rest pretty quickly. It's like remembering whether or not you have an elbow. Normally it's not something you think about. It just kinda is. What I am not used to is looking up at everyone. You're all supposed to be a certain height, and that height is shorter than me. I feel like I've stumbled into a land of giants."

The barman arrived near them looking expectant. Arryn turned toward him with desperation.

"I need an ale. Like, a really big one." She held her hands apart at about the size of a large tankard. The barman gave her a look.

Arryn sighed. "Yeah, alright. A pint then, just, get me a pint."

The barman grabbed a glass, filled it up, and set her pint down in front of her. Arryn threw down some coins and quickly scooped up the pint to take a drink. Immediately she coughed and spat it out in a very undignified manner. "Oh come on!" she yelled. "Barman! I said I wanted an ALE!"

Jordan was laughing at her again. "Don't yell at him it's not his fault. Everything liquid tastes like water. You should try the food once. It's worse."

"Son of a bitch. And I was just thinking that this might not be so bad," said Arryn. "Is the food actually worse?"

"You ever accidentally buy saltine crackers that don't have salt?" said Jordan.

"They sell those?" said Arryn.

"Yes. They're terrible. Now dunk one of them in water and eat it. That's pretty much what the food tastes like."

Arryn dropped her head onto the bar hard enough to make an audible thunk and groaned. She turned to talk to Jordan again without bringing her head off of the table.

"This is Elder Tales right? I'm not just crazy?" asked Arryn.

"As far as I can tell. Everything is laid out just like Dixie is in the game. Hell, you know as well as I do how many times we've met up here. Even the damn bartender looks pretty much the same," said Jordan.

"Speaking of meeting up here. Where's everyone else?" asked Arryn.

"Should be here soon," said Jordan.

They sat in silence for a bit. Jordan sipping his water watching the people mill about the tavern while Arryn moped, her head still on the bar. Eventually she perked up.

"How about you?" she asked. "Regretting making your character look like he should join AARP?"

"I look wise and experienced, thank you very much," said Jordan.

"You're covered in face paint," said Arryn.

"Yeah," said Jordan. "It kinda itches too. I wasn't expecting that."

Jordan was of the medicine man class, the only class unique to the North American server. While technically one of the healer classes, its healing powers aren't at the level of the druid or cleric. However it made up for it with damage prevention, mobility, and even some of its own attacks. Jordan had decided to embrace his role fully by making his character appear to be a wise, old man clothed in fur and leather armor. His prized possession was his wooden staff with the likeness of many different animals and spirits carved into it. It was a phantasmal class item called Ancestor's Wrath. He'd earned by completely a medicine man only quest called The Ceremony which had spanned over much of the American West. He'd been hanging onto it rather tightly ever since whatever had happened to bring them here happened.

"Well, it's your own fault for role playing too well," said Arryn. "You didn't have to make yourself a grandpa just because you're a medicine man."

"Role playing is the fun part! If you don't put any story behind it it's just clicking buttons in the right oder," said Jordan.

"Yes, but when I click buttons things blow up on the other end," countered Arryn.

Arryn was a 'min max' sort of player. She had gone all in on being a damage per second sorcerer. Everything from her gear, to her race had been chosen to make sure she dealt as damage as fast as possible, and everything else be damned. This meant that if asked, she could blast a hole through most anything smaller than a raid boss. But on the other hand, a stray cross bolt from a mid level orc could drop half her health. The solution was to make sure she didn't get hit by any stray cross bolts. This, of course, was Jordan's job, and it wasn't as simple as pumping her full of healing spells. Arryn's health and armor were so low that certain attacks could take her out faster than any cleric could heal her. He had to use a complex set of damage prevention, healing, and mobility spells to keep her up and fighting. It didn't help that Arryn also made liberal use of teleport spells to keep herself out of danger. Simply keeping track of her during the mayhem of a fight was a job onto itself.

"Glad to hear you guys are arguing about the important thing." The melodious voice of an elf came from behind them.

"Ashley! You made it," said Jordan. "Where's the professor?"

"MJ's finding us a table. It'll be easier for everyone to talk if we don't sit at the bar," said Ashley.

"Fair enough," said Jordan. "You gunna bring your drink?" he asked Arryn.

Arryn just grunted at him in reply. Ashley gave Jordan a questioning look.

"I'll wait till everybody gets here to explain. For now I'll just say don't bother ordering anything," said Jordan.

MJ was seated at a table with her back towards the wall at the far end of the tavern. Though everyone called her the professor, she was actually the youngest of the party at sixteen. However, while Jordan enjoyed role playing in general, MJ lived for the story of Elder Tales. Ever since finding the books in middle school she'd loved the world. She had fan art posted on her walls and had spent more hours than was strictly necessary link jumping through the wiki. Being one of the more shy kids in her class, the world had been a great escape from everyday life. When it came to in game lore she was nearly as useful as google.

She'd finally managed to convince her parents to let her actually play the MMO when her older sister had told them she'd play with her. This had probably been one of the best thing about the game. Her older sister Ashley was thirteen years her senior and had properly moved out of the house by the time she was ten. Getting to know each other while living together really hadn't been possible. But with the game, they'd really been able to hang out. Despite the fact that Ashley was a real life adult with a teaching job and bills to pay she still made time to play with her little sister. So they'd get online and go on adventures together or just wander the world and chat about whatever had been going on in their lives. It had been a great outlet.

And now she was here, staring out of her own eyes at this world she knew way too well. She pulled the sides of her cloak a little tighter around her and sank deeper into the shadows of the hood. The soft velvet felt comforting against her skin. She silently thanked whatever impulse made her spend the extra gold to get this particular cloak.

Despite being nervous, a small bubble of excitement threatened to burst as a grin all across her face. How many times had she imagined sitting here? Hundreds? At least? She'd imagined walking through the town square and gazing up at the beautiful cathedral, or seeing a sunrise over the wide expanse of the central plains. She'd even imagined grabbing a meal at this very tavern. But every time she had imagined these things there hadn't ever been so many, well, people.

She enjoyed interacting with the world of Elder Tales. It was predictable. She knew the rules. People on the other hand, people were hard. Sure, Elder tales was an online game and technically there were people everywhere in it. You could talk to people with messages or voice chat if you wanted to. But if you didn't want to they sorta just faded into background and became a part of the scenery as much as the trees were. Even if you did interact it was usually about game world things which MJ knew plenty about.

The people in this tavern, however, were different. They were definitely not scenery. Mostly, they looked scared and confused. Give me a dragon any day, she thought, scared humans are the worst. Thankfully, her sister had found the other members of their party and was bringing them over.

Conveniently, as Ashley, Jordan, and Arryn were pulling up chairs Bones and Shiroe also found them. Bones was waving excitedly at them while Shiroe wore his customary soft smile. MJ liked Shiroe. It was nice having someone around who knew as much about the game mechanics as she did about the lore. However, since Bones had convinced Shiroe to join them it had become nearly impossible to convince Bones that some of his ideas were impossibly ambitious. They all settled in, finding it more difficult than expected to keep everyone's magical staffs out of each others way. Finally, Bones stood up with his costumary energy.

"Alright, listen up!" said Bones. "I hereby call our first meeting since the apocalypse to order."

Everyone stared at him for a beat.

"The apocalypse?" asked Jordan.

"I'm not sure you guys noticed," said Bones, "but the world has ended. Congratulations, you made it to the other side. I don't know why it happened, and I don't know the way back. I'm not even sure if there is a way back. I do know that I don't want to waste any time running around like a chicken with my head cut off." He stared hard at everyone seated there.

"We get it Bones," said Ashley, "panicking won't help. You can lay off. But we're all at a loss here. What are we actually supposed to do now?"

Bones brightened at the question.

"Actually," he said, "I have the perfect solution for that. How about we ask our head strategist?"

Shiroe felt his stomach sink through the floor as five expectant eyes all turned towards him.


	2. Just How Screwed are We?

**Disclaimer:**

I do not own the story of Log Horizon or any of its related properties

* * *

**General Warnings:**

The M rating is just for safety. This story may get more violent/sexy later but for now, find your smut elsewhere.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

First fanfic? Let's have six main characters. There's a brilliant idea.

I really like this world, so I'm writing as fast as possible to get out of the intro stuff, promise.

Critiques help writers suck less. All are appreciated.

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**Just How Screwed are We?**

Bones was still smiling confidently at Shiroe.

"What about it Shiroe? Any thoughts?"

"Well," said Shiroe, "not really. We don't really know anything yet. Actually that's exactly the problem. If I knew for sure this was the game I'd be able to help but there's no way to know that. In fact I think we have to assume we don't know anything about this world. For all that it looks like the game we knew clearly some things are different. We don't know if revival at the cathedral is a thing, how combat works, if there even is combat, if there are monsters. There are too many unanswered questions."

That had been laying it on pretty heavily, but Shiroe didn't want any of them to take the situation lightly. Assuming they knew the rules would be dangerous, perhaps fatally so.

"We know the beer's terrible," grumbled Arryn.

That had not been the response Shiroe was expecting.

"What?" asked Shiroe.

Jordan answered, "Arryn and I got here before you guys so we decided to try out the bar. You can order food and drink from the innkeeper just like you could in the game. Everything costs the same and my purse had exactly as much in it as I had before the apocalypse. I'm betting you could even get a room here, though I haven't tried that yet. The food however, sucks. It's just bad. It doesn't matter what you order to drink, either. It all just tastes like water."

"You were magically transported into a possibly hostile fantasy reality for an unknown reason and your first response was to try and get drunk?" said Ashley.

"Seemed like the responsible decision at the time," said Arryn with a shrug. "Actually, it still seems like the responsible decision if I could pull it off."

"Figure out how to get drunk later, Arryn," said Bones. "We have some work to do, mainly gathering information. First things first, we should find out what we're capable of. We'll head to just outside the city and see what we can do."

"Wouldn't it be safer inside the city?" said Ashley.

"We don't know if the town guard still exists," said Bones. "For all we know the no combat in town rule is still in effect."

"Actually, you can see that it is," said MJ, who had gotten bored and started playing with her menu. "See, right underneath your current location you can see what restrictions are currently on."

"My point exactly," said Bones. "I don't want us to figure out we can perform a combat spell and immediately follow it up with getting pulverized by the town guard. Let's just hope somebody else figures out whether or not the cathedral still works for us."

Everyone shivered at that thought. The town guard were non player characters that mercilessly enforced the rules in town. They were fearsome enough on a computer screen, nobody relished the idea of facing them for real.

"Oh, and speaking of the cathedral, I'm sure it goes without saying but we're acting like reviving isn't a thing until proven otherwise." said Bones. "Nobody take anywhere near the same level of risks you would take if this was still Elder Scrolls." He seemed to be staring hard at Arryn while he said that.

Arryn threw up her hands and said, "I get it! Don't die. Yes sir."

"Good," said Bones. "Alright, let's go check out outside."

It was past noon by the time they had worked there way to the city gates. The panic that had initially sprung up in the city seemed to have died down into a nervous calm. Friends were finding each other and guilds were rapidly gathering together their members. Everyone seemed to be waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Outside the city felt considerably more pleasant. Dixie was surrounded on all sides by forested hills that rolled away far into the distance. The bright summer sun threatened to be oppressive but was held in check be a light breeze. Shiroe took a moment to let his eyes adjust now that they were out of the shadows of the city buildings, quietly letting the view wash over him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the summer air, listening the buzz of the cicadas all around them.

Shiroe felt a gentle nudge against him.

"You ok?" asked MJ.

"Huh?" said Shiroe, snapping his eyes open. He'd been stopped for so long that everyone else had already moved farther into the forest. "Oh, uh yeah. Just," he took a minute to look around again, "taking it all in."

MJ looked out at the surrounding landscape with him, a smile on her face. "It really is beautiful isn't it?"

Shiroe looked down with surprise at the young spell caster next to him. MJ was probably the most shy of the group and had been the slowest to really open up to him. But once she had the questions and discussions about all the different aspects of Elder Tales were relentless. Shiroe had been honestly surprised at how much she knew about items and raids she'd never encountered. Most players you encountered in the game considered each item merely a collection of stats. MJ on the other hand knew the back story about most anything you could name in the game. It had become a little game of Shiroe's to try and tell her a story about some item or quest she hadn't heard about yet. It was not an easy game. Thinking about it that way, perhaps her smile at the world around them shouldn't surprise him so much. She might actually be better equipped to handle this world than any of them.

"Yeah," said Shiroe, absentmindedly.

"Come on," said MJ grabbing his hand and pulling him out of his reverie, "we don't want to be left behind."

Upon reaching a clearing a little way from the city Bones asked,"What should we try first?"

"How about healing," said Shiroe. He figured that was the least dangerous skill to try.

Ashley nodded, brought up her menu of skills, pointed her staff at Jordan and made a selection. Her staff glowed while at the same time a similar glow surrounded Jordan.

Jordan's body suddenly emitting light alarmed him somewhat and he made a couple of involuntary and undignified hops before his conscious mind caught back up to the situation. "Hey! Warn me before you decide that I'm the guinea pig," he said.

Ashley smiled at him and stopped the spell. "The role suites you. Did it do anything?"

"I don't think so, but then again I was already at max hp. Something definitely happened though," said Jordan. "I mean, I wasn't the only one who saw the whole glowing thing, right?"

"Nope," said Bones. "pretty sure we all saw that. Anybody have a good idea about how to take out a little bit of Jordan's hp?"

There was a thump as Arryn hit Jordan in the back of the head with her rod.

"Ow!" said Jordan. "Really?"

"It was worth a shot" grinned Arryn.

"Did it work?" asked Shiroe.

"Give me a sec," said Jordan. He spent a couple of seconds puzzling through his menu.

"Oh hey!" he said. "Lost five health points."

"Does that item have a melee stat Arryn?" asked Shiroe.

"Nope," said Arryn cheerfully. "It's a pure mage weapon. I just got the urge to whack the grouchy one over the head. It happens sometimes."

For some reason her answer worried Shiroe. Using a large object to hit things made sense in the real world. Find big stick. Hit enemy with said stick. Simple. But in Elder Tales, if an item didn't have a melee stat you simply couldn't use it that way, no matter how much it made sense. For Arryn to successfully use it on Jordan felt like cheating somehow. It made Shiroe more uneasy than he could logically explain.

Ashley tried out her healing spell successfully and with much less hopping around from Jordan.

"Alright, simple stuff accomplished," said Bones. "I want to see something cool. Arryn?"

A wicked grin came over Arryn's face and she turned to face an empty part of the forest. Everyone braced for impact. It wasn't that Arryn wasn't good at her job, she was. If you needed some DPS, you could hardly do better. But sometimes the glee she took in her own destructive power was a little disconcerting.

Planting both her feet firmly with one hand she navigated her skills menu and the other she raised her magic rod. It was an impressive looking thing. Three feet of gnarled wood inlaid with thick rivers of gold. Finding the spell she wanted she tapped it with her finger and yelled, "Singularity!"

A sphere of negative space appeared in the area beyond them accompanied by the roar of air rushing to try and fill it. It raged in the clearing for a second or two before collapsing in on itself to a bright point of light and then exploding outward with thunderous energy. What had been a thick grove of trees was now a thirty foot area of kindling and falling branches.

Arryn laughed and put her hands on her knees. "Oh man, that really takes it out of you. Fun though."

"Did you really have to yell the name of the spell before you cast it?" asked Jordan.

"No, but it made it a lot more fun," said Arryn.

"Cool," said Bones, "we can blow things up. Now try it on Jordan."

"Ok!" said Arryn.

"What? No!" said Jordan. "Did you all not just see her level half a block worth of oak tree?" sputtered the incredulous Jordan. "I didn't think we were testing out the whole, get revived at the cathedral idea just yet."

"Oh don't worry," said Arryn. "I couldn't pull that spell off again so recently anyway, even if I wanted to."

Shiroe added, "MJ and Bones are summoners. I don't relish the idea of us succeeding on summoning something we can't control without knowing whether or not we can damage the thing. Most of your spells involve summoning spirits which sounds even worse. And most of the things I can do only affect you when you're actually in combat. Which leaves Arryn and her attack spells."

"You guys are really nominating the feeble old man for this?" said Jordan.

"Oh get over yourself," said Arryn. "You're a twenty-six year old healthy male employed at as an entry level techie who has too much time on his hands so he plays games online with his friends. You are not actually sixty years old, no matter how much you act like a putz."

"Ouch," said Ashley.

"Yeah, that was a bit harsh," said MJ.

"What?" said Arryn. "He was being a putz."

"Alright! Alright," said Jordan. "Just, fyi, if you kill me, I'm haunting the shit out of you."

"Promises promises," said Arryn. "Now hold still."

She carefully repeated her steps as before, this time selecting a considerably less damaging spell.

Arryn said, "magic bolt!" just as she was tapped her skill screen. Sure enough, a bolt of energy shot out of the end of her magic rod, struck Jordan, and dissipated away.

"You all right?" asked Arryn.

"Yeah, I think I'm fine," said Jordan.

"Did it hurt?" asked Ashley.

"Not really," said Jordan. He opened his menu to examine it. "My hp is about five percent lower though."

"Alright, more healing for Jordan," said Ashley. "You're starting to make this a habit."

Her spell was interrupted, however, by the sound of heavy footsteps right behind them. A behemoth of a rock golem was cresting the hill, easily twelve feet tall. Bones was already yelling orders at Ashley and Jordan to get back. Shiroe was also rapidly retreating and searching for Astral Bind as quickly as he could.

Before anyone could really accomplish anything MJ appeared behind the creature and said "stop."

The behemoth stopped.

"Sit," said MJ.

There was another loud thud as it sat.

MJ turned to look at the rest of her companions. They blinked at her.

"What?" she asked. "Oh, uh," she nodded toward the golem, "summoning works."

"What the hell?!" yelled Ashley. "What were you thinking summoning that thing without warning us first?"

MJ started stammering, "Well, I don't know. You guys were taking a long time and I got bored so I started messing with the menu again and well..." she trailed off as she looked up at the mobile pile of stones sitting next to her. "He listens at least."

Ashley was still glaring but everyone else had a good chuckle at that. Never let the members of your party get bored, thought Bones ruefully. They start … trying things. Be it trying to get on top a pillar of rocks while waiting for a raid to start or, he strained his neck to stare up at the golem's face, playing with pets.

Bones cleared his throat and said, "alright everybody. It looks like our spells and skills work. No need to go through everybody's one at a time. Spread out a bit and have at it."

After that, everyone went about testing their varied skill sets on their own. Each of them was high enough level that it took quite awhile to test all of them. Many of them, like Shiroe's buffs and Jordan's damage reduction spells, required some teamwork to try out. Shiroe wasn't sure if he was disappointed or glad that everything seemed to work. On the one hand, they appeared to have a way to defend themselves in this world. On the other, things would have been a lot simpler if things only looked like the game. He looked down at his too tall body dressed in an enchanter's cloak and sighed, yeah that had been too much to hope for.

With the sun well on it's way to setting the party made there way back inside the city. No one wanted their first encounter with a real monster to occur after dark. They decided to swing by the market section of town to find some dinner before heading back to Bone's house. Finding a food vendor who was actually open was considerably more challenging then they were expecting. Most of the normal vendors run by people of the land had closed early. They finally found an adventuerer run shop that was still open. As they were walking to a table with their food Bones turned to Shiroe.

"I'm going to ask some questions around town. Keep on eye on everybody while I'm gone," he said.

"Make sure you try and find some people of the land to talk to," said Shiroe. "I want to know what's going on with them too."

"Sure thing," said Bones and exited the shop.

Shiroe sat down with everyone else at the table his forehead creased with worry. He still had more questions than answers and that didn't seem likely to change anytime soon. The food at least smelled good, he thought. He took a bite of his chicken and nearly cried. It was as bad as Jordan had said. If bland could be embodied as food this would be it.

But a funny thing happened as he sat around the table listening to Ashley and Arryn give Jordan a hard time. Without really thinking about it, he stopped worrying about all that had happened in the day and started enjoying the banter. After MJ told them the story about Na'ill the Alv mage who managed to tame the first golem he told his own story of the first time he and Naotsugu had run into one in the wild. It had been the first time Naotsugu had really run into something with a harder head than him and the encounter had resulted in an unceremonious retreat. Laughing with the others about their past experiences, all of a sudden it didn't matter so much that the food was terrible and the day incomprehensible. Being an only kid and an avid gamer meant dinner for Shiroe usually meant a bento box by himself in his room. Sitting around the table with his friends was, kinda wonderful.

"I do feel sorry for you Shiroe," said Ashley after he was done with his story.

"Why's that?" asked Shiroe.

She said, "Well, all of us are stuck here for god knows how long, but at least it's somewhere we're familiar with. You've been playing with us for awhile but it's still not like this is your home server. I'm sure you have friends you're worried about back in Akihabara."

Shiroe's froze up a bit. Of course he had people he was worried about. Before all the craziness had happened he'd actually been planning on traveling to the Japanese server with Bones. The plan was to check out the area around Dixie, than go meet up with people in Akihabara once their Western hemisphere friends had logged off. He knew that former members of Debauchery Tea Party as well as people from the Crescent Moon Alliance were on, even if he couldn't communicate with them. There was nothing he could do for them half a world away, though. Hell, he didn't even know how to help himself yet.

"Ashley, don't make senpai sad!" MJ said, wrapping her arms around his waist in a fierce hug.

Shiroe's face turned beet red. "Since when do you use honorifics?" he stammered trying to disengage. Unfortunately for him, this only brought him closer Arryn, who was quick to pick up on this sort of game.

She quickly attack hugged him from the other side. Using her best chibi voice she said, "But senpai! How could we not? You're only the smartest, most clever enchanter ever!"

Bones arrived back at their table to find the two girls more or less strangling Shiroe. Raising an eyebrow, he said, "did I miss something?"

"Bones!" said Shiroe, "Help me!"

"Not particularly," added Jordan, grinning.

Shiroe gave a cry of frustration and desperately wished he had a spell of ethereal walk in his bag of tricks.

"Anyway, where have you been?" asked Jordan.

"Asking questions around town," said Bones.

Everyone perked up at that.

"Anything interesting?" said Jordan.

"Plenty," said Bones. "The good, the bad, and the just strange. Bad news is that nobody else seems to have any idea about what happened. Neither Landers or Adventurers seem to have any idea how we got here or why it happened. But here's the weird bit, to the Landers we didn't just appear out of nowhere.

"What?" said Shiroe.

Bones continued, "it took me awhile to find one who didn't immediately run away from me. Even then I had a hard time convincing him I wasn't going to attack or yell at him. Apparently to them, we've always been here. It's just that before we were a lot like amazingly powerful simpletons. Give us a task, promise us a cookie, and off we went. Convenient for the Landers because we kept the monster population down, but more of a force of nature than really people. Until today. Today we all went crazy and the Landers have no idea why."

"Which explains why so many of them are laying low," said Shiroe.

"Exactly," said Bones. "I mean, what would you do if the local group of immortal demi-gods suddenly ran around like chickens with their head's cut off? Closing down your shop early for the day seems like a prudent first step. The weirdest part is how human the guy sounded. I asked him how long he'd been here and he didn't even understand the question. He said he'd moved to town a couple of winters back."

"Wait, back up," said Shiroe. "You said, immortal demi-gods. As in, in reference to us."

Bones gave him a grim smile and said, "that's the good news. Apparently a couple of frightened idiots got into a fight in town this afternoon and actually started trying to fight with their weapons. Sure enough the royal guard showed up and flattened them. Gave the onlookers quite the show. But, if you can believe the story, a couple of moments later they revived back at the cathedral. Even had the standard experience point drop."

"Well that's good, right?" asked Arryn nervously.

"I don't know," said Ashley. "It just feels wrong."

"I'm with Ashley on this," said Shiroe. "Reviving is all well and good, but we have no idea how it may affect you long term. Even if there isn't any physical penalty, mentally that can't be a fun thing to go through."

"I'm glad we're all agreed on this," said Bones. "I'm still maintaining my rule from earlier. Dying is bad. Don't do it."

"Next you're going to tell us people die when they are killed," remarked Jordan dryly.

Bones gave him a look, but otherwise ignored him.

"Anything else odd we should know about?" asked Arryn.

"Other than the fact that we're apparently immortal and that NPCs are people too?" said Bones. "No I think that about covers it."

"Alright, then we should get out of here," said Arryn. "I think MJ is playing with her menu again."

MJ looked guiltily around at everyone and quickly tapped a couple points in the air before cocooning herself back in her cloak.

Later that Night, Ashley made her way up the stairs of Bones' place toward the roof. They didn't have a proper place in the guild building since they were only a party but Bones had owned property in Dixie for forever. It was square and simple from the outside, but had a pleasant and roomy interior. The best part though, thought Ashley, was the roof.

She walked out into the chilly night air carrying two steaming mugs. She found Jordan already up there looking at the sky. They didn't know each other as well as each of them knew others in the group. But both being healers had lead to a mutual understanding, they tended to get grumpy about the same things. Makes me feel like we're the parents, thought Ashley. Constantly running around trying to keep everyone out of trouble. She may find MJ difficult sometimes, but she didn't even want to imagine having to keep Arryn in one piece.

Or perhaps we're the grandparents, she amended with a small smile after looking at his face. It had the weathered lines and weariness of a body that had seen a lot. Somehow, though, it also managed to have a stillness. It was a calmness that seemed steady as a rock. Like it was impossible to get him ruffled, no matter how much he seemed to gripe and complain. It was altogether not a bad look.

She handed him a mug and sat down.

"What is this?" he asked in surprise.

"Something warm," Ashley said.

"Oh joy, warm water," said Jordan.

"Just try it," said Ashley.

He took a sip then looked at her with wide eyes. "This is tea," he said.

She opened her mouth to respond, but he cut her off.

"Wait, wait, wait," he said. He took another sip. "Correction, this is GOOD tea."

Ashley laughed at him.

"How did you make this?" asked Jordan.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she teased.

He waited patiently.

She said, "alright, if you really want to know. To make tea, the trick is, to make it."

Jordan took a moment to make sure he hadn't missed something before narrowing his eyes and saying, "fine, don't tell me your tea secrets."

"I told you you wouldn't believe me," responded Ashley with a sigh. "I'll show you tomorrow."

"Oh," said Jordan. "Thanks."

They sipped their tea, staring at the stars for awhile.

"You have stars like this where you're from?" asked Jordan.

"The house I grew up in, actually where MJ still lives, is pretty far out into the country," said Ashley. "Actually..." She found the big dipper, used it to find the north star and then pointed a little to the west of it. "I think technically it would be about a twenty hour drive in that direction in the real world. It's in the middle of nowhere, but it still never looked like this."

"I've lived in cities my whole life," said Jordan. "My family vacations were always to one city or another. But when I was in college, me and some friends took a road trip to the Grand Canyon on a lark. Slept in the van, smoked weed, the whole nine yards. Middle of the night I wake up and need to go to the bathroom. So I step out of the van and the whole milky way is blazing down on me. I never would have believed how bright the stars could be. Lit up the whole are. Still had nothing on this."

He looked back up at the sky and they sat quietly agian.

"Can I tell you something and you promise not to freak out or think I'm crazy?" said Jordan.

"After today?" said Ashley. 'Yeah, I don't think you need to worry about that."

"I'm a medicine man class," said Jordan. "So all my spells are about using spirits of the world and of the dead or whatever."

"Yeah, and?' asked Ashely.

"I can hear them," said Jordan, "the spirits. In the way the wind blows, in the way the ground feels, how bright the sky is. It's like there's a second skin to the world and all of a sudden I can see it. I can feel it in my body too. The power to summon things out of it, or let myself slip through it. It's a bit terrifying."

He was looking down at his hand, flexing his fingers.

Ashley stared at him for a bit, then said, "you remember when Arryn whacked you over the head today and you were checking to see if you lost health?"

"Yeah," said Jordan.

She said, "I could tell you had. I have no idea how. I didn't need the menu to check your stats. I could just feel it. It was like what I used to get on the screen had translated to a sixth sense. I didn't really trust that it was real."

They sat in silence for a bit before Jordan said, "bit more than a game then."

"Yeah," said Ashley.

"Makes me wish I had paid a little more attention to all the trivia MJ says," said Jordan.

"Oh god," said Ashley, putting her head in her hands. "What are we going to do?"

"Well," said Jordan. "We'll drink tea, then we'll get some sleep, and then we'll tackle tomorrow. Think you can do that?"

Ashley took a deep breath. "Yeah, I think I can do that."


	3. Rain on a Clear Day

**Disclaimer:**

I do not own the story of Log Horizon or any of its related properties

* * *

**General Warnings:**

M rating is mostly for safety. Some cursing and unfortunate things happening to goblins in this one

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Turns out things get trickier once you get past the introduction stages and actually have to come up with a story. Go figure.

Also, I'm starting to realize how much I'm figuring out these characters as I go along, so apologies if character traits shift a bit as I try to flesh these guys out. It's all in the name of making them seem more real, promise.

* * *

**Rain on a Clear Day**

"Master Shiroe? Master Shiroe?"

Shiroe was not coming to consciousness quickly. Why was someone calling his name? There shouldn't be anybody in his apartment. He blearily cracked his eyes open.

Oh god! His apartment was on fire! He scrambled out of bed, snatching at his glasses and jamming them on his head. His face contorted in confusion. The door to his room wasn't where he had left it. He felt a moment of vertigo as he tried to orient himself. Where the hell was he? Why wasn't he in his apartment? Why was the fire looking at him?

The shock of the last observation was enough to make Shiroe pause, obviously he was missing some crucial information. His brain slowly unpacked all of the events of the previous day. This took rather longer than usual.

Right, he was in the world of Elder Tales. He, his friends, and apparently many other people had become their in game avatars. He firmly checked himself from asking how or why. It was too early for wild speculation. First, he should probably figure out why a fire elemental was in his room trying to talk to him.

Noting his apparent attention, the elemental servant attempted to address him again, "Master Bones has requested your presence in the dining room master Shiroe."

"R-right," said Shiroe. "Tell him I'll be right down."

The elemental bowed and disappeared in a puff. Shiroe stared at the spot where it had disappeared. This was going to take some getting used to.

Damn it Bones, he thought. It was his first day waking up in a strange room on a different plane of reality and the guy had decided to wake him up using a fire elemental? What the hell?

He sighed realizing Bones probably hadn't even thought about it. Sometimes Bones simply took too much in stride. You'd have thought that suddenly becoming a dwarf would have knocked him off kilter. Nope, he just grinned and went with it. Shiroe supposed he should be a little more grateful. Bones' attitude had kept them moving yesterday even though none of them had a handle on what was going on. But just going with it would only work for so long. Eventually they had to figure out what to do with themselves.

Coming down the stairs, Shiroe found Bones and Jordan sitting at the dining table.

Jordan caught sight of him and grinned.

Shiroe glared at him and said, "you knew, didn't you?"

Jordan put up his hands in a mock helpless gesture. "I thought about telling him it was a bad idea, but then I imagined your reaction. How could I pass that up?" he said through a smile.

"Arryn's sadism is rubbing off on you," said Shiroe.

"I'm not that bad," replied Jordan.

"Telling who what was a bad idea?" said Bones.

Shiroe said, "for future reference, waking people up with fire elementals is a bad idea."

"Oh?" said Bones as a loud shriek came from upstairs.

All three heads snapped upward and followed the sound of pounding feet as a disheveled MJ came sprinting down the stairs.

"The..There was … a demon...thing," she said, completely out of breath.

"Seriously, call it off Bones," said Shiroe. "If it gets to Arryn she's going to blow up half of your house and bring the royal guard down on us to boot."

"Alright point taken. Just trying to save some time" muttered Bones as Ashley came in from the kitchen.

"What the hell is going on?" said Ashley.

"Bones is seeing if he can off one of us via heart attack. So far he's been unsuccessful but it sounds like he was pretty close with MJ," said Jordan.

"It's just a wake up call!" said Bones.

Ashley accepted that a useful answer was not forthcoming and moved on to MJ's puzzled staring.

"What's up?" asked Ashley

MJ pointed at her apron and gave her a, "da fuck?", face.

"Right?" said Ashley. "the short of it is that cooking in this world is dumb and I hate it."

"Still not helping," said MJ.

"Apparently you can make real food in this world," said Ashley. "Which is awesome and all, except you need to have the subclass of chef to pull it off."

Bones made a face. "You should have seen Jordan's attempt. He managed to turn the whole mess into purple goo."

Ashley continued, "not only that, more complicated items require more levels in the chef class. Hence, status buffing with the newlywed's apron dress."

"Wait," said MJ, "So does this mean I'm going to need to ask you every time I want a snack?"

"You should be able to make simple things as long as you're wearing the apron," said Bones. "I managed toast without too much difficulty."

"Also, ingredient items taste normal," said Ashley. "So if you're really desperate grab an apple."

It was a weird set of rules, thought Shiroe. Like someone had cherry picked ideas from the real world and the game world without much regard for consistency. It was proof of one thing though, they were not constrained to merely taking in game actions.

"Anyway," said Bones, "the point is we have breakfast."

"Poptarts?" asked Arryn through a giant yawn as she wandered into the dining room.

"Not happening," said Jordan. "Omelets though."

"Meh," said Arryn sleepily.

"I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting you till around noon," said Jordan.

"You guys talk loud," said Arryn. "Also you fall asleep faster without reddit."

"You want anything else to eat?" asked Ashley with some generosity.

"I'll pass," said Arryn. "Wake me when we do something interesting."

She laid down on the bench next to the dining room table, curled into a ball, and plopped her head into Jordan's lap to use as a pillow.

"I swear you're six years old in the morning," said Jordan. "Which is impressive considering you turn into an alcoholic lecherous old man by night."

"Better than being a grumpy old fuck all day long," said Arryn without opening her eyes.

After breakfast they gathered up their gear and headed for the city gates. It had been a surprisingly easy conversation figuring out what they should do next. Earning enough money for a days worth of food took about half an hour's worth of work killing monsters. So simply surviving wasn't going to be a problem, especially since all of them were high level players with significant reserves of gold. If they wanted to they could bum around the city for months before really needing to do anything.

"Yeah, that sounds like a great idea," said Jordan. "Let's all literally become magic, be transported into a world we love, than not do anything accept sit on our asses."

"I wasn't saying that's what we should do," said Bones. "I was saying we could if we wanted to. Nothing is forcing us to go out and deal with who knows what outside the city."

"Except boredom," said Arryn. "Seriously, if you guys really decide not to leave the city Jordan and I may have to split from this little pow wow."

"I'm alright with leaving if MJ is," said Ashley. She looked at MJ who nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, we're in," said Ashley.

"Shiroe?" said Bones.

"I don't think we'll figure anything out by staying here," said Shiroe. "I'm up for it."

Bones smiled at everyone and said, "good. I'm glad we're in agreement. Which immediately brings us too where the hell do we go?"

Everyone looked at each other.

"Chickagami City," said MJ. "It's the largest NPC city on the server."

"Assuming it actually exists like it does in the game," said Shiroe. "You're hoping the library exists?"  
MJ nodded and said, "It's worth a shot."

Arryn raised her hand and said, "help for those of us who ignored flavor text?"

"Chickagami is supposed to have a massive library in the palace reserved for use by royal scholars" said MJ.

"Which I always took as a convenient excuse for the developers to not actually create the thing," said Shiroe. "They just had an NPC in front of these fake doors that told you to go away if you hung around too long. Even if the library doesn't exist, this is the capital of a massive kingdom we're talking about. There's going to be a lot of people there from all over the place. If anybody knows what's going on, the info is going to show up their first."

"I'm convinced," said Bones, "but Chickagami is basically where Chicago was, right? Even if distances are halved in this world that is still a ten or twelve hour car ride in real life. We don't know the fairy ring schedule and not all of us have griffon mounts."

Bones looked at Shiroe, who smiled sheepishly.

Ashley said, "That's basically a border to border hike. That's supposed to take fifteen to twenty in game days. Which, I suppose, are real days now."

"We've certainly done crazier things," said Bones, "but I want to make this as easy on us as possible. That means getting used to defending ourselves. Also we should get a map of all the known shrines between here and Chickagami. I don't want to get halfway and have somebody respawn all the way back here."

"I'll handle the map," said Shiroe.

"Excellent, you can do that tonight when we get back," said Bones. "For now though, let's go kill some monsters."

He whipped out his preposterously large green hat and jammed it on his head, ostrich feather twitching all the way. Bones threw them a large grin and they were off.

There is a very good reason, thought an out of breath Shiroe, that most MMOs have you fight in third person.

"Son of bitch!" yelled Arryn as yet another one of her spells missed.

"Don't yell about it, get out of there!" said Jordan.

Seeing the battlefield from above turned the whole fight into a chess match. You knew exactly where everyone was at all times. Aiming an area of attack spell half way across the screen was as simple as placing one right next to you.

"Bones, your on controller duty," said Shiroe. "Keep 'em bunched up"

"On it," yelled Bones as he spawned half a dozen fire salamanders.

But this, this was madness. When you threw a fire spell it was actually bright enough to blind you, enemies could hide behind one another so you didn't notice them, and there was no auto lock to make sure your attack actually hit.

"MJ, save your mp for when Bone's needs some backup," said Shiroe. "Ashley, make sure nothing sneaks up on you and me."

"I would kill to have my hotkeys back," said Ashley as she continued healing Jordan.

The worst part, though, was using the damn menu. Every creature you encountered popped up its own health bar and info dump, so having half a dozen running at you was completely overwhelming. Add on to that having to aim your weapon with one hand while tapping through the menu to fire off an attack and they were having a rough time of it.

"Shit, lost one," said Bones. "Little help MJ?"

"Too soon! I don't have enough mana back," said MJ.

"Crap. Arryn, you got incoming," said Bones.

"Don't waste your mana teleporting I got you!" said Bones.

He jammed his staff into the ground as he hit some commands. Out of his staff erupted a warrior in translucent white. He stood before Jordan and Arryn holding his shield and forming a barrier against the goblin who was attacking them.

"How long till your ready?" asked Jordan.

"Twelve seconds," said a breathless Arryn.

"Alright, I'm going to have to switch to ethereal walk in a sec. Get ready to run," said Jordan.

Arryn nodded and opened up her menu.

"Now!" said Bones.

The warrior in white disappeared only to have Jordan himself turn translucent. The goblin was momentarily shocked as Jordan's ghostly figure ran right through his swinging sword without giving him so much as a glance. Recovering quickly, the goblin then charged the seemingly defenseless Arryn. She waited until he had made his way most of the way to her before blinking out of existence with a grin and a wink. The poor goblin turned to find both mages were now on the opposite side of the battlefield. Noting that most of his goblin friends had gone from being on fire to being herded by a pair of mid sized boulders with legs, the goblin made the sensible choice to slink off into the forest rather than pursue his quarry.

"You ready?" Shiroe asked Arryn.

"Make it happen," she responded.

"MJ cover our exit," said Shiroe.

MJ nodded.

"Go!" yelled Shiroe.

The entire group broke away from the battlefield at a sprint, MJ keeping her eyes on the scene behind her to make sure her golem's were shielding them properly. Shiroe executed a couple of quick spells and Jordan, Bones, and Ashley all felt their blood run cold as their mana was drained from them and redistributed to Arryn.

Arryn stopped running, faced the battlefield, and said "singularity."

For a couple of seconds, it rained goblin.

"Ew," said Ashley. "Hey, where are you going?" she said when Bones started walking back to where the goblin's used to be.

He looked at her with surprise. "Loot," he said simply.

After a few moments, the rest of them followed.

Scattered around the newly created clearing floated glowing money and items. It looked exactly like in the game except in 3D and surrounded by goblin gore.

"Well this is creepy as all hell," said Jordan.

"I can't pick anything up, it all just disappears," said Arryn.

"Check your inventory," said Shiroe.

"Oh, what do you know," said Arryn. "There it is."

Their collection of the spoils was interrupted by a wild yell as the missing goblin came bursting out of the foliage, his rusty cutlass waving above his head. He took a swing at MJ, who had wandered a little ways from the group. She managed to dodge the goblin's wild swing but fell down in the process. Before it could land a serious blow, however, she raised her staff and fired off a bolt of magic. The goblin screamed as the smell of burning flesh spread through the air. MJ jumped up from the ground aimed her staff at the goblin and fired another bolt. This time it didn't make a sound besides the light thud as it dropped to the forest floor. Glowing items appeared about it.

MJ twirled her staff back behind her shoulder with a flourish as she took a step back and surveyed the forest around them. After a moment or two she let out a breath. Her shoulders relaxed and she turned back into the nervous girl in gray from whatever she had been the moment before.

"What the hell was that?" asked Ashely.

"Huh?" said MJ. "Uhh, panic mostly?"

"But, your attack," said Shiroe.

"Oh, yeah. The staff has a base attack that doesn't use mana. It's not very powerful but it's good enough for goblins," said MJ.

"But it's a normal attack," said Shiroe.

"Well yeah," said MJ, still not getting it.

"And you didn't use the menu to select it," said Shiroe patiently.

You could watch the realization as it rolled over MJ's face. "Oh!" she said.

"Yeah," said Shiroe. "Try it again."

MJ pointed her staff out into the forest, closed her eyes in concentration, and sure enough fired another energy bolt. She opened her eyes excitedly.

"This is so cool!" she said.

"Did anybody try to cast spells without the menu yesterday?" asked Shiroe.

Everyone looked at each other.

"Well, can you blame us?" said Jordan. "After you turn eleven and the Hogwarts letter doesn't show up you kinda stop expecting to be able to cast magic by thinking about it."

"Still convinced the owl got lost," said Arryn.

"Well, it looks like today is your lucky day," said Jordan. He closed his eyes and also aimed his staff into the forest. Nothing happened.

"Ah what the hell?" said Jordan.

"Ha, watch and learn," said Arryn. "Fireball!"

A small section of the forest went up in flames.

"Dammit Arryn," said Bones who quickly summoned some water elementals to put out the blaze.

After some more experimentation, they figured out that anything more complicated than very basic spells required some vocalization to really make them work. Shiroe figured that was probably a good thing anyway. It would help keep them organized during fights.

After that, things went a lot smoother for them. They were certainly not perfect by any means, but not having to use the menu meant they could concentrate on aiming and the battle as a whole. It also just felt better casting spells this way, like their bodies had done it a thousand times before. Shiroe supposed that in some ways they had.

They were walking back to the city when Arryn gave Jordan a nudge.

"What?" said Jordan, noting her mischievous smile.

She nodded towards where Bones was walking and mouthed, "watch."

Moving silently behind Bones, she snatched his hat and put it on her head.

"Hey!" said Bones turning around instinctively swiping for his hat back. The look of shock on his face when Arryn and his hat disappeared had Jordan fighting to contain his laughter.

"Oh no," said Bones as he realized just how futile his position was. The manically evil laughter behind him didn't help.

"I love being magic!" said Arryn as she teleported herself in a zig-zag fashion all the way up the hill they were on.

The whole party was laughing at Bones now, who hadn't even tried to keep up.

"Good good," said Jordan. "The most evil person in our party has teleportation. This is good."

"At least she's our evil imp?" said Bones with a shrug.

As they got closer to the top of the hill, they noticed Arryn watching something on the other side. She motioned for them to hurry up and be quiet.

When they all got there she pointed down below and said, "player killers."

A lone guardian was surrounded by a five person group.

"Bad day for him," said Jordan.

"Should we help him?" said Ashley.

"Not enough time," said Shiroe. Even as he spoke the guardian went down.

"I saw his healer friend go down," said Arryn. "It was pretty much over after that."

"Well," said Bones striding forward. "Home's in that direction, best say hello."

"Oh bugger," said Jordan.

Shiroe raised an eyebrow at him.

"Best get ready," said Jordan to him, his jaw set.

The group moved boldly down the path towards where the player killers were collecting their loot.

"Ho!" said Bones as they approached, waving his hand at them.

Some of the players went for their weapons, but their leader stopped them.

"Ho Bones!" he said waving. "How is your merry band of mad mages doing?"

"Nuts as ever," said Bones. "Crazy enough to think there might be a better way for you to spend your time than player killing."

"Gotta figure out how fighting in this world works somehow," said the guy.

Bones nodded in agreement. "That's true," he said. "But I'm pretty sure that's what monsters are for."

"Yeaaaah," said the guy with a smile. "But you know what's easier to kill than monsters? Newbies."

Bones laughed at that. Turning to the rest of the group he said, "You hear that? Brand new world this guy shows up in and he spends all day killing little kids."

He turned back to face the group of PKers. They already had their weapons drawn.

"You know," said Bones, "I think this guy might be right?" He pointed his staff at the guy.

"Let's see how easy it is to kill a bunch of noobs."

The battle was over before it had really begun. The PKers were still trying to use menu inputs to try and fight. On top of that they weren't the most well organized group of players to begin with. It was almost laughably easy when the other group was half distracted trying to manipulate a menu.

"How?" cried the last of their group alive. "How are you casting spells like that?!"

"Spend the day doing something better than killing people too weak to defend themselves, maybe you'll figure it out," growled Bones.

Bones stomped his staff on the ground and his phoenix roasted the last of the guy's hit points away. After the guy was gone he dismissed his phoenix with a huff, his face still dark and cloudy.

"Well, that felt gross," said Bones.

"They were asking for it," said Jordan. "It was the right move."

"Yeah," said Bones. "I suppose so."

That night, Shiroe and MJ were at the city archives. Shiroe, being a scribe subclass, was getting started copying down the maps they needed for their trip. MJ had said she wanted to come along.

"Haven't you seen all the maps before?" said Shiroe. "They look just the same as when you could look at them in the game."

"Yeah but now they'll be on actual parchment!" said MJ. "It's completely different."

When they got the maps checked out she had actually made a squee sound and smelled them. Shiroe gave her a look.

"What?" she said. "They smell good."

Shiroe had to admit, it was different when you could actually hold the parchment in your hand and work by mage light. He found himself excited to poor over them and see how good of copies he could make. He chuckled to himself, excited to do paper work, who'd have thought.

"Hey Shiroe?" said MJ.

"Yeah?" said Shiroe without looking up.

"Today was a good day, right?" said MJ.

Shiroe looked up and smiled at her. "Yeah, I had fun," he said.

MJ nodded. Shiroe nearly went back to work before noticing her staring off into space.

"Something bothering you?" said Shiroe.

She took a bit before saying, "I've dealt with Pkers before, I just..." she trailed off for a second. "I just never heard them go squelch before, you know?" She laughed at a disturbingly high pitch. "I didn't even know people could go squelch. But I suppose that's what happens when you get hit by a half ton of rock with attitude."

Shiroe was alarmed at the pain and panic in her face. "They're still out there you know," he said quickly. "They aren't dead. They came right back."

"I know," said MJ. She seemed to bring herself back together. "I'm just not sure if that makes me feel any better."

They sat there quietly for awhile. Eventually MJ leaned into him and closed her eyes. Shiroe managed to not jump too much.

"I'd like to not have to do that again," said MJ.

Shiroe gave her a hug.

"Yeah," he said.


	4. WASD

**Disclaimer:**

I do not own the story of Log Horizon or any of its related properties

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**General Warnings:**

M rating is mostly for safety. Cursing and descriptions of violence in this one.

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**Author's Notes:**

This one was rough. It kills me knowing I have several chapters worth of material that was just plain not good and had to be cut.

Any help on what plot points, character descriptions, personality traits, or whatever needs work please point out. Sharpen your hatchets people. Use them with vigor.

Yet again, the wise words of Shiro Emiya rear their ugly head. I'm starting to make that a habit and I'm not sure what to think about that.

* * *

**'WASD'**

It was well after dinnertime and shopkeepers were already starting to light the torches outside of their shops. On the main streets, lanterns of mage light flickered on automatically in response to the setting sun. Despite the cheerful light, a pall still hung over the city. The initial panic had subsided over the past week only to be replaced by a bitter melancholy. Some adventurers had left the city or hunkered down with their guild, but that still left many people with nowhere to go and no idea what to do. What was worse, many seemed to have gone with the strategy of ignore everything until something makes sense. The overall feeling was not a pleasant one. Still, here and there pockets of life stood out like candles in darkness.

Jordan chatted amiably with the shopkeeper. He and the old man had bonded over the frustrations of keeping the youths in line. The irony of Jordan technically being a twenty something had been completely overlooked. Between the sympathetic grumblings, and the expensive order of supplies Jordan had placed, the two had managed to endear themselves to each other.

In the game, taking the trip to Chickagami city would have been simple, even if you wanted to actually travel there instead of take a fairy ring. Step one, face north. Step two, walk until you get there. There was no step three. Now though, it was a lot more like planning an extended back country camping trip. They had to figure out everything from what equipment to bring, to what food they would need, to what monsters they would likely encounter. MJ and Ashley claimed to have actually interacted with the mysterious world of outside, so they were in charge of planning and organizing equipment. Shiroe and Bones had fallen into their usual role of figuring out the actual route and strategies to deal with monsters. This left Jordan and Arryn running all of the little errands that needed doing around town. Which really meant Jordan was left running all of the errands while also trying to keep track of Arryn. He managed to pull himself out of the conversation with the shopkeep long enough to notice she had once again deserted him.

"Would you stop disappearing every time I turn my back," said Jordan irritably when he finally found Arryn inside a shop across the street from where he'd been.

Arryn brushed him off, "I never go far. Besides, shiny things are more fun than you are."

"I don't suppose you ran off to help order some of this gear," said Jordan.

"Better!" said Arryn.

She then proceeded to start dancing in place causing the bells on her new boots to make a ridiculous amount of noise.

"Cute," said Jordan in a tired voice.

"Wait for it," said Arryn, her grin never wavering.

Without stopping her ridiculous flailing in the slightest, Arryn went completely silent. Even the sound of her feet hitting the wooden floor had disappeared.

Jordan had to hide his surprise. "Timed?" he asked.

"Nope," said Arryn with a smile, "complete mental control. I can turn it on and off like a switch."

"Fancy," said Jordan. "You done yet? We have things to do."

Arryn rolled her eyes and sighed, "fine, fine."

They were walking back toward Bones' apartment chatting about how the morning's training had gone when Arryn suddenly stopped outside the entrance to a dark alley.

"What is it?" said Jordan.

"I'm not sure. I thought I heard something," said Arryn, her brow furrowed.

She slowly entered the ally, an orb of light raised above his head.

"Oh come on," said Jordan. "Entering a dark alley at night because you think you heard something. Isn't that on the top ten list of cliché bad ideas?"

"Shut up and help me out," said Arryn.

Jordan growled something under her breath and out loud said, "here wait a second."

He cast detect life and a silvery wall of light spread out in all directions. Jordan had his eyes closed in concentration. After a few seconds he opened his eyes and said, "there's definitely something down there."

Arryn nodded and continued into the alley, her grip tight upon her weapon.

"Don't fire off anything by accident," said Jordan. "I don't feel like trying to run from the royal guard tonight."

Arryn nodded silently in response.

Arryn's light chased away the shadows as they moved farther into the alley. Halfway in, they both tensed as a clearly audible scuffle came from the darkness in front of them. They rounded a corner to find a young women staring in their direction, her eyes glazed and unfocused.

Arryn and Jordan both stopped in their tracks, trying to understand what they were seeing. She was hunched over in obvious pain and staggering aimlessly. Blood was dripping from her head as she looked around in confusion. Even as they caught sight of her, her shaking legs gave out and she collapsed into the dirt.

"Jesus!" cursed Arryn and she instinctively rushed forward, Jordan close behind her.

"What the fuck?" said Arryn as they reached the unconscious women.

"Arryn," said Jordan, his voice very steady.

"Yeah?" said Arryn.

"I need you to go get Ashley, and I need you to do it right now," said Jordan.

"What?" said Arryn.

"Our cleric! Ashley! I need you to get her. I'm going to stay here and do what I can. You move faster than I would. Go!" said Jordan.

Arryn snapped back to herself.

"Right," she said.

Arryn looked toward the roof of the buildings next to them and blinked twenty feet straight up, landing lightly on a ledge as she got there. Another blink, and she was gone.

"Right," said Jordan to himself, "now what the hell do I do about you?"

He went about the job of using his limited healing skills to try and help the girl. He also sent out some spirits to warn him if anyone decided to wander down that particular alley. Being ambushed was not on his list of things to do for the evening.

Waiting for Ashley and Arryn to get back left him with not much to do but study the poor women they had found. She was clearly a lander, couldn't have been much older than late teens. Her dress was torn and bloody, both of her arms clearly broken. He was managing to keep her from dying, but landers didn't recover health like adventurers did. They weren't as tough physically either.

"Son of a bitch, what happened to you?" he whispered to himself.

Jordan's eyes couldn't seem to avoid staring at her battered face. The bruises and blood left a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. Suddenly, the women let out a cry as she became conscious. She started panicking and looking around wildly.

"Hey, hey," said Jordan with as much calming influence as he could muster. "It's alright. You're alright, I'm healing you."

Her eyes grew round as saucers when she caught sight of Jordan and she let out a yell of terror. Scrambling back from him on all fours she and tried to stand, but it was too much for her. She staggered a couple of feet before collapsing back to earth with a sickening crunch.

"Son of bitch!" cursed Jordan in surprise.

He rolled her over so she wasn't face down in the dirt and sighed.

"And now you have a broken wrist too," he said.

Jordan reached into his bag and found a sleeping potion. Carefully, he managed to get some down her throat. Well, he thought, at least I know my healing was doing something if she became conscious. He ran a hand through his hair and pressed his face into his palms, trying to keep a grip on the fear that was growing in his belly. Her reaction to him had not done his calm any favors.

Not anytime too soon, his sentries let him know Arryn was back. Instead of just Ashley coming around the corner the entire rest of the party arrived.

"Thought I said bring Ashley," said Jordan to Arryn dryly.

Arryn shrugged, "would you have preferred I took the time to argue with them?"

Jordan glared at Arryn but said nothing as Ashley came over.

"Is she knocked out?" she asked.

"I gave her a sleeping potion," said Jordan. "She woke up on me once and had a complete panic attack. I didn't want her to do it again."

Ashley nodded and performed some considerably more effective healing spells.

"Any idea where she's from?" she asked when she was done.

"No idea," said Jordan.

Ashley nodded as she raised her staff and dispelled the debuff. The women's eyes blinked open. She looked around, clearly alarmed at the number of people she found around her.

Before she could really panic Ashley came right up to her and said, "don't worry, we're here to help. We want to take you home. I'm a cleric, see?"

She stepped back so the girl could see her robes. The women gave her a long, frightened look before bursting into tears and burying her head in Ashley's chest.

It took awhile, but eventually they got the young women to give them directions to her house so that they could help take her home. It was a tiny apartment on the outskirts of town. When they got inside, Ashley and MJ took her into her to her room to help clean her up. Everyone else packed into the cramped living room.

It was over an hour before before MJ and Ashley felt confident enough in the women's health to leave her room and let her sleep in peace. Everyone else was still in the cramped living room. There had been some talk about whether it was alright for them to just camp out in her apartment, but nobody really wanted to separate the group.

"Is she going to be alright?" asked Bones.

"I think so," said Ashley. "I really wish we could get her to a proper doctor and get her checked out. I can heal her but that doesn't mean I actually know what I'm doing."

"It's better than nothing," said Bones. "Did she say what happened?"

"No," said Ashley. "We managed to find out that her name is Katelyn and that she's a lander. She moved to the city to find work and doesn't have any family in town. But she clammed up when we tried to ask about what happened."

"I don't suppose there's any chance that it was a monster of some kind?" said Bones.

"Very unlikely," said Shiroe. "The city's magic keeps out any wandering monsters. If it wasn't working we'd notice pretty quickly."

Jordan spoke up in a voice laced with frustration, "It's got to be an adventurer, right? I know everyone else has been to busy to walk around the city much, but the mood has gotten pretty ugly. People are angry about what's happened but don't know what to do about it. It's led to some nasty rumors floating around. Stories about people getting attacked in one way or another. Nobody ever seems to have specifics, though. I figured it was all just talk by people in a lousy situation, but I'm starting to actually believe it. I'd really like to go back to assuming it's all just rumors. So, if somebody could explain to me that it's crazy talk and I'm a fool to give it any stock that would be great."

There were some days Shiroe wished he wasn't the villain in glasses. Ignoring things he didn't want to know would be a lot easier. Something had been off for awhile now and it had been nagging him since he first saw Arryn whack Jordan on the top of his head. But after what he'd seen tonight, two and two were starting to make four.

"It might be possible," said Shiroe, pausing as he tried to get his vague notions into a coherent thought. "I mean, it depends on how the royal guard works in this world. The idea is that it's a bit of ancient magic left over from the Alvs and it's charged with keeping the peace. If it's actually a semi intelligent entity with a desire to stop violence then it would stop anything. But it wasn't built with magic originally, it was built as a computer program. It didn't have a concept of good or bad, just a list of actions that adventurers can't take against each other. It's a collection of if then statements. If someone uses lava orb and someone else loses hp in the same area at the same time, then destroy the person who used the attack. But we aren't using 'wasd' to move around anymore. The royal guard might not show up if an adventurer simply punches another person. It just wouldn't recognize the action."

Shiroe was pacing around the room, his speech coming faster. Now that he had a grip on the idea his mind was like a boulder rolling downhill, it wouldn't let him stop until it hit bottom.

"And it gets worse for us," Shiroe continued. "All of our bodies are based on stats we had in the game, that includes strength and dexterity. We're all either a magic class or healers. None of us put any ability points into the physical attributes. A guardian walks around in hundreds of pounds of armor every day like it's nothing. It wouldn't matter much if they were tenth level or ninetieth, they'd wreck us. The power structure of every guild in this city has gotten turned sideways."

"You're telling me the one source of authority in this city can be ignored by half of the people in it while the other half are completely hapless?" said Bones.

"So what are we going to do?" asked Jordan.

"Do?" asked Shiroe.

"Well yeah," said Jordan. "There are assholes out there thinking it's okay to go attacking people. Not attacking people who revive at the cathedral, mind you. They're going after people who, you know, actually die when they are killed."  
Shiroe laughed, "What we do is run, and the sooner the better."

"Bullshit," said Jordan in disbelief. "You really want to run away?"  
"Yeah, I do" said Shiroe, deadly serious. "I don't think you get it. Say we somehow get enough power to enforce some rules. Something ridiculous like buying the guild hall or cathedral. Yay, great success, everyone throw a party. But now we've pissed some people off. They don't like listening to us, so a group of them take bats and beat our skulls in. They start slowly though. First they break our legs, then they break our arms, then they crush our wind pipe so we suffocate to death. As far as the royal guard is concerned it was death from the environment. Hell, they wouldn't even have to go slowly if they didn't want to. They could just camp the cathedral and beat us to death over and over again."

"You are a fucking coward," said Jordan.

"Excuse me?" said Shiroe.

"Fucking. Coward." said Jordan. "Yesterday we hunted rock giants for fun. Now you want to run away from thugs with bats?"

"Yes!" said Shiroe. "I don't know how to beat thugs with bats. You don't either. Let me remind you these thugs could probably play shotput with a small car. We. Cannot. Win. And I'm not letting something like that," he pointed towards the lander's room, "happen to Ashley, or MJ, or anybody else here."

"But you're okay with leaving everyone else to fend for themselves," said Jordan.

"You can't help them," said Shiroe, "get over it."

Words failed Jordan and he stomped out of the house.

Arryn stood up but Bones said, "stay here, I'll go get him."

"Tell him to grow up when you get there," said Shiroe.

"You cool your shit," said Bones.

"Sorry, stupidity annoys me," said Shiroe uncharitably.

Shiroe stewed in a corner for bit after Bones left to find Jordan. He hadn't lost his temper like that in quite awhile and it wasn't a mental place he easily tore himself out of. Trying to make Jordan understand how much trouble they were in had been exceptionally frustrating. However, eventually he had to admit to himself that he wasn't really angry with Jordan. Hell, wanting to protect everyone was about as noble a desire as you could get. It was that Shiroe was just plain scared. Anyone with enough muscle could essentially become king of the city if they wanted to, or worse, the whole city could descend into a war for power. Woe be to anyone who was still here when that happened. Especially if they were on the wrong side of the class divide. Obviously people were already figuring out there were ways around the royal guards' rules. If they didn't leave soon, they might not be able to leave at all.

Bones found Jordan in the backyard, still pacing with furious intent. He was cursing under his breath about a "spineless cold hearted asshole." Bones lit a pipe and let him go for a bit. Benefits of being a dwarf in a fantasy land, thought Bones, I get to smoke a pipe and monsters will probably kill me long before the cancer has a chance. After awhile Jordan cooled down enough to stop pacing like a madman.

"Finally wear yourself out?" asked Bones.

Jordan came over and sat down on the back porch.

"That guys a dick," he said with a sigh.

"Sometimes," said Bones between puffs. "So are you more often than not."

"I'm serious," said Jordan.

"So am I," said Bones. "You're a right prick when you feel like it."

"Bones," said Jordan angrily.

"He's worried," said Bones, his voice losing its jovial tone. "The shit hasn't really hit the fan yet, but you can tell it's coming. Shiroe's spent all week bouncing ideas off of me trying to figure out a way for everything to not go to hell in a hand basket. He's freaked out because not a one of them will work. Believe it or not, having to abandon a city full of people does not sit well with him either."

Jordan gave him a skeptical look.

Bones said, "Don't believe me? You remember that 'buy the guild hall' idea he mentioned? That was not an idea thrown out randomly."

"No way," said Jordan.

"Don't ask me how he was actually going to pull it off," said Bones. "but he was seriously thinking about blackmailing everyone into being nice to each other."

Jordan noticeably shivered. "I stand corrected, he's not a dick he's just straight up evil."

Bones laughed, "Coldblooded would be more accurate. He doesn't care how it looks or what he has to do, if there is a way to make everybody happy he'll do it. He makes winning moves, no matter what."

"Explain again how that's supposed to make me feel better about him?" said Jordan.

"It means that if there was a way for us to help he would have already thought of it," said Bones. "I've given him a week and he's got nothing. As far as I'm concerned that means it's impossible for us right now. Which makes the only sensible move, running."

"Still leaves a bad taste in my mouth," said Jordan.

"I hope it does," said Bones. "Means you're a good person, despite sometimes being a bit of an asshole."

Jordan chuckled, "yeah, yeah. I'm hoping this confidence you have means you and Mr. evil glasses face have some sort of plan. If you don't than I'm going to go back to being annoyed real fast."

Bones, eyes glinted in the torchlight and he said, "It's pretty simple. We're going to kill the royal guard, invent an economy that encourages action, and impose social order before somebody manages to become lord of the flies."

"Decided to become king, have you?" said Jordan.

"My rule shall be just and fair," said Bones. "I like to think of it as a benevolent dictatorship."

"Still seems like running away isn't very conducive to any of that," said Jordan.

"You still have much to learn my minion," said Bones.

"No," said Jordan.

"Underling?" said Bones.

"Nope," said Jordan.

"Noble member of my cabinet?" said Bones.

"Now you're just overcompensating," said Jordan.

"Bah, oh well. I have plenty time to think of something good," said Bones.


End file.
